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| From https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ en/4/41/Blood-The-Last-Vampire.jpg |
Director: Hiroyuki Kitakubo
Script: Kenji Kamiyama
Based On An Original Project
Voice Actors: Yûki Kudô (Saya);
Saemi Nakamura (Makiho); Joe Romersa (David); Rebecca Forstadt (Sharon); Stuart
Robinson (Louis)
Uses English and Japanese
dialogue
Blood: The Last Vampire was significant for its pioneering use of
computer assisted animation, the transition from hand drawn anime to the digitally
crafted growing onward until hand drawing cels is virtually obsolete as in
Western animation. Hand drawn anime from decades before to the digital assisted
work of now shows a lot of differences in style and look, providing the latter
with its own distinct looks but also nostalgia for the old anime. Revisiting Blood, the James Cameron quote on the UK Blu-Ray cover about the pioneering
use of computers is the least interesting thing about this short theatrical
work. Instead it's the premise that was used, from a script written by the
future director the Ghost In The Shell
television series and Eden of the East
(2009), that's far more interest when the technology used for anime is
common place now.
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| From http://www.fareastfilms.com/cmsAdmin /uploads/blood_the_last_vampire3.jpg |
Blood has the traditional stock character in anime of the
mysterious and cold blooded young woman as the protagonist, the aloof and brooding
individual named Saya. Set in 1966 on an American army base in Japan, the Yokota
Air Base, she is assigned by a secret American group to hunt down vampiric
entities called chiropterans. While wooden stakes and garlic could become
cumbersome to carry around and use, Saya's best option to deal with these
creatures is by way of a large kitana and evisceration. In only forty eight
minutes, Blood encapsulates a simple
story which leaves a lot left uncovered. As one of the rare horror anime in
existence it makes a damn good attempt at vampire mythos. Terrible vampire
stories are a universal language, not just in Japanese, and depicting
horrifying bat-like entities that hide in human disguise, covering up their
feedings with false suicides, Blood
sticks out with a different take on them in only a small space of time.
The digital animation is undeniably
crisp and good. Barring some obvious computer designed buildings and vehicles,
this is a high budget theatrical release from Production I.G., who've produced some significant and beloved anime
in their existence from numerous Mamoru
Oshii works to The End of Evangelion
(1997). The result is a short film that is both artistically rich and shows
the digital technology at its best. Hand drawn animation in anime led to
incredible work, exceptional examples of the hard work of individual animators,
or entertaining and tripped out psychedelics, but I like how digital animation,
alongside allowing sequences that would be arduous or impossible to draw by
hand to exist, made a considerable impact on realistic looking designs and in
developing atmosphere to the stories' settings. Hand drawn anime could provide
some eye-catching mood to stories, but modern digital anime has a knack for
really dank or moody urban locations especially at night, something Blood shows in being mostly set then. Isolated
subway cars, desolate back alleys, an occupying US base on Halloween night, locations
where everything feels lived in.
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| From http://i.imgur.com/JnlqxbT.jpg |
What stands out as the best part
of Blood is what Kenji Kamiyama and
the production crew decided to write as a story for this feature. It could've
been a vampire story set in any time period, but decided to set it just before
the Vietnam War around the real life Yokota Air Base is a very unexpected and
inspired choice. Not only is the Pacific War between the US and Japan invoked,
but it also invokes for me how the late Sixties and early Seventies were very
turbulent in global politics, political protests and controversies in Japan
directly involving the American bases on their country's soil. To use the
location inherently brings this real history up even if it's never referenced.
Sadly, while light novels, including one written by Mamoru Oshii, a manga and a videogame were created as follow on
material, this version of Blood
never had animated sequels that could delve into this setting more. It could've
easily shot itself in the foot in discussing the politics, but as it stands Blood amazingly is one of the most
subtle and fascinating takes on post-World War II Japan in anime I've seen
without ever bringing up the subject.
That's not to suggest this is a
profound study on the subject. The anime's real plot in the end is about real
vampires in-between people dressed as vampires in the middle of a Halloween
dance, but the context adds a significance. By merely showing the context as it
does as surface dressing it shows a greater interest in the subject without
ever becoming a commentary. A cross cultural world is depicted, sights of bars
for American G.I.s, prostitutes, male transvestites and cross dressers, the
children of American soldiers going to on-base schools and celebrating Halloween
in costume unaware of the horrors taking place that same night. The realistic
character designs add a fleshed out world to the content, and the fact the
anime is bilingual in Japanese and English, including actresses switching
between languages, gives an immediately different tone to this from other anime
from its setting.
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| From http://www.madman.com.au/images/screenshots/screenshot_9_3654.jpg |
This context also adds to the
horror story in the centre. No gothic castles, no dubious depictions of Goth
culture, but something different. A secondary character, a Japanese nurse at
the school called Makiho, shows the advantage of this detail in just untouched back-story.
A plump middle aged woman, rarely depicted or drawn as realistically as here,
she is mostly there to be traumatised by the horrors she sees, and for
animators to draw as many different expressions of shock at Saya behaviour as
possible, but without emphasising it so many things are left to ponder out of
interest. Not only that she switches between her native language and English,
as anime usually is in one language even when depicting non-Japanese
characters, but also the fact she is a Christian from the prominent crucifix
around her neck. This background detail is seen in the other characters and
everything else, and what is absent in the plot still has clues to entertain.
The production staff clearly
don't show a hatred for the USA either, seeing the war in-between the lines
with great complexity, lovingly rendered scenes of an army band playing real
thirties jazz, carved Jack o' Lanterns littering the base and, amusingly, the
sole scene in a classroom where young teenagers are apparently being taught
about German expressionist movies and horror films from the text on the
blackboard. If anything, alongside the chiropterans, it's the approaching Vietnam
War which is ominous, sounds of passing planes continuously heard and the end
credits using real war footage of US soldiers depicted in a fuzzy haze. If this
had an animated sequel with the same tone, it would've fascinating to see how
the production team would've depicted the encroaching final years of the
sixties, not only the war in full tilt but depicting Japan in that decade,
which would've instantly made it one of the most unique horror works animated
or otherwise to tackle vampiric monsters. (Oshii's
light novel continuation, which was released in the West translated, seems to
be more a documentation of the political and social events of that period with
a small narrative running through, which adds further intrigue).
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| From http://www.trashmutant.com/uploads/ 1/0/9/8/10984559/2686083_orig.jpg |
Unfortunately Blood: The Last Vampire, as said, never
had animated sequels. Blood+ (2005-6)
and Blood-C (2011), the later a
collaboration with famous all-female manga creators CLAMP, are spin-offs set in different interpretations of the world.
There is also the 2009 live action film as well which I saw at the cinema, a
film that didn't set the world on fire at all but was a memorable cinema
experience regardless of the movie. I don't know what's weirder with the live
action film - that it came to being when adaptations for anything from Akira (1988) to Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995-6) feel by the wayside or that I saw
the result in a multiplex in the middle of a June day in 2009 in the first
place. It's sad as revisiting Blood: The
Last Vampire, I really liked it. It would've been a double edged sword if
it got official sequels. It would've likely not had as high a production if made
for TV or straight-to-video. And it could've been lost to terrible story writing.
But like other one-offs it offers so many what-ifs for its characters and
setting you still wish it was a franchise. Ironically while promoting what
anime would become in production, this really feels like more of the old
straight-to-video anime that would diminish and die from the year of its
release onward rather than as the theatrical feature it actually was,
especially those that never had any additional episodes to finish the
narratives. It's almost a fitting eulogy to them in a strange way.
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| From http://pxhst.co/share/img/2006_04_5/28224636yuc.jpg |
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